Stories tagged: January

By

Shannon Nolan

on Dec 16, 2014 02:58 PM

When he first moved to Philadelphia for Temple University’s Urban Anthropology Ph.D. program in 1996, Notebook member Bill McKinney said he felt like it was home, similar in a lot of ways to where he grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now 18 years later, McKinney, who lives in Kensington, is dedicated to helping the youth of Philadelphia and aiding emerging nonprofits as a dedicated employee, volunteer, and mentor. He said the Notebook has been a valuable resource for him when it comes to providing him the kinds of content he needs to fit his many roles.

By

David Lapp

on Dec 10, 2014 11:45 AM

Pennsylvania’s calculation for funding special education in charter schools is broken. In Philadelphia, special education tuition paid by the District to charter schools has doubled from $11,000 per student to over $23,000 per student in just 12 years. During the same period, special education revenue to the District from the state stagnated at under $5,000 per student.

Rather than basing charter tuition on what the charter spends or needs, the calculation is based on what the charter’s authorizing district spends on its own students with disabilities. That total expenditure is then divided by 16 percent of the district’s student population. The assumption is that since 16 percent is roughly the average percentage of students with disabilities in the commonwealth, it is a close enough estimation to use in the calculation for all districts.

In a city with 60,000 children in “deep poverty,” it is essential that those who work in schools understand the painful experiences that students may carry with them. Their families face such overwhelming issues that some of us mainly know about from the news: hunger, homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration, neglect.

Besides those facing poverty, there are children in all neighborhoods who have been scarred by abuse or the loss of loved ones. But in low-income communities, mental health supports are also in short supply. Trauma begets more trauma.